The New Jersey courts have been handling a case that squarely addressed a company’s ability to monitor employee email. Back in April of 2009, I mentioned a New Jersey case that found e-mail, sent during work hours on a company computer, was not protected by the attorney-client privilege: Compliance Policies and Email. That later was [...]
Archive | March, 2010
Child Climbing Mount Everest
Jordan Romero is thirteen years old. And he is departing on April 5 for his trip to climb Mount Everest. That would be an extraordinary feat. But is it ethical to allow such a young person to put himself in such a dangerous situation? (In case you are wondering, the current record for the youngest [...]
Supreme Court Rules on When Mutual Fund Fees are too High
The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Jones v. Harris Associates, addressing the standard for when mutual fund fees are too high. Background Under §36(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 the “the investment adviser of a registered investment company shall be deemed to have a fiduciary duty with respect to the receipt of [...]
Making the Case for Compliance at Private Companies
More focus has been aimed at the need for compliance programs at public companies. Of course, that focus has been largely drive by the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. The other focus comes from highly regulated industries like financial services that require compliance programs. That doesn’t mean that private companies can ignore compliance. There are many more [...]
Mutual Fund Advertisements and Social Media
Much has been made about FINRA’s Regulatory Notice 10-06 and how that will affect the social media use by registered representatives. Looking beyond the broker/dealers, I thought it would be interesting to see what mutual fund companies are doing with social media. I’ve started seeing some mutual fund companies starting to dip their toes into [...]
Compliance Bits and Pieces for March 26
Here are some interesting stories from the past week: The Difference Between Wrong and Illegal by Charles H. Green Do you know the difference between a wrong action and an illegal action? If you don’t, you are not alone. But neither are you to be trusted. Ghostblogging will be the death of social media in [...]
Bribery in Britain
The British government is working on a new Bribery Bill “to reform the criminal law of bribery to provide for a new consolidated scheme of bribery offenses to cover bribery both in the United Kingdom (UK) and abroad.” The Bribery Bill would replaces the offenses under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention [...]
Should You Invest in Ethical Companies?
Yesterday, I was excited to see that the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2010 had outperformed the S&P 500. Ethisphere went back five years and charted the performance. They found a 53% return for the 2010 class of companies, compared to a 4% return in the S&P. The hindsight of looking back on the performance [...]
Daimler Charged with FCPA Violations
Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, has been charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Department of Justice accuses the company of engaging in a long-standing practice of paying bribes worth tens of millions of dollars to foreign officials in over 22 countries. There is an April 1 hearing in U.S. [...]
Financial Overhaul Moves Forward
With the health care reform now out of the hands of Congress, there is now movement with financial overhaul. Senator Dodd introduced the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 last week without a Republican co-sponsor [Dodd Goes Solo]. Instead plugging in amendments, the Senate Banking Committee voted on straight party lines to advance the [...]
